RYAN FINNERTY was pleased to see the ‘old’ Braehead Clan back as a rare win reaped big rewards for the Canadian and his team.

Heading into Sunday night’s home match against the Nottingham Panthers, Clan had one just once in their previous nine outings and had lost their previous five games on the spin.

Despite that negative run, a resurgent Braehead turned in a terrific performance to blow away the Panthers 4-2 in front of a bumper Braehead Arena crowd, a result that delivered two vital points and secured a play-off quarter-final place.

It has been a tough February for all concerned with the Elite League side, and Finnerty is happy just to resume normal service at last.

“This win has been a long time coming and Sunday’s game was a bit more like the Braehead Clan for me,” he said.

“Realistically that’s the second game we’ve played with pretty much a full bench or at least a semi healthy one at least.

“We lost Ric Jackman with a broken foot and loaded up the forward lines with imports, with which we were able to do a lot of positive things we weren’t able to do because of the line-up.

“We played great defensively and while Nottingham has a lot of the play, we kept them to the outside.

“Now we can move on from this period and perhaps get back to normality. Nobody here is used to losing and nobody obviously accepts it.”

Building on that victory will be no easy task for a Clan side looking to scramble further up the table before the regulation season is done.

If they can finish third in the standings – they are currently just two points off Belfast Giants who occupy that spot – it means they will meet the side in sixth when it comes to the play-off quarter-final.

To give themselves a fighting chance of that they must attempt to take something from two games on the road this weekend coming, firstly in Belfast on Saturday before visiting the Dundee Stars on Sunday.

“After this, hopefully we can get back into our stride and the dressing room is in a good place now,” said Finnerty. “It always is after you snap a streak like the one we’ve been on.

“You can’t teach confidence though and that’s what we’ve been missing for a while. Guys lose focus and start trying things outside of their normal game to try and get that back.

“Winning is the only recipe to get that back and hopefully the guys got that. I can tell you I did and it was fun again standing behind the bench again.

“We’ve got a tough week ahead and we’ll have a great week of training as we look to build Sunday’s result.”